Posted on 06/14/2010 8:30:01 AM PDT by SandRat
WASHINGTON, June 14, 2010 – Military personnel at Dover Air Force Base, Del., performed their duties with solemn respect over the past several weeks as U.S. servicemembers killed in Afghanistan returned to U.S. soil.
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Today, the United States observes National Flag Day, an annual tribute to the American flag, the ideals it stands for and the sacrifices made to preserve them.
President Woodrow Wilson recognized during his first Flag Day address in 1915 that the freedoms the U.S. flag stands for weren’t and never would be free.
“The lines of red are lines of blood, nobly and unselfishly shed by men who loved the liberty of their fellowship more than they loved their own lives and fortunes,” he said. “God forbid that we should have to use the blood of America to freshen the color of the flag.”
But American blood has spilled time and time again to preserve American liberties, most recently, in Afghanistan.
Just as during heartbreaking ramp ceremonies in Afghanistan before fallen servicemembers return, and during dignified-transfer ceremonies at Dover, history is filled with examples of how the flag has inspired Americans through their proudest as well as darkest days as a symbol of patriotism, strength and resilience.
It provided strength to now-retired Air Force Col. David M. Roeder as he and more than 50 other Americans held hostage in Iran for 444 days from 1979 to 1980 watched their captors taunt them by carrying garbage wrapped in the U.S. flag.
“When someone attacks the American flag, it’s because they recognize all that it represents and the greatness of this country,” Roeder said, thinking back over the experience.
It inspired retired Marine Chief Warrant Officer Charles W. “Bill” Henderson as he watched the flag-draped remains of Marine Cpl. Robert V. McMaugh carried from the rubble after the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in 1983.
“Yes, it is just a piece of cloth,” Henderson later reflected. “But what it represents are the lives of thousands of Americans who have given everything for this nation – who ask nothing in return but felt an obligation of duty to their country.”
Few Americans will forget their shared sense of pride as they watched televised images of three firefighters raising an American flag over the World Trade Center ruins just hours after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Army Capt. Joe Minning and his fellow New York Army National Guardsmen, many of them New York City firemen and police officers, were sifting through the rubble in a desperate search for survivors that day when they paused to watch Old Glory rise. “Seeing the flag raised above all of the rubble and ruins of the World Trade Center instilled a new sense of pride in me for our country,” Minning recalled.
The flag continued to inspire Minning and tens of thousands of other U.S. servicemembers during deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
In April, it provided strength to Sal Corma, who left his hospital bed following a stroke and amputation against his doctor’s orders to see the body of his son, Army 1st Lt. Salvatore S. Corma II, who had been killed in Afghanistan, arrive at Dover at 2 a.m. on an April morning. Less than three weeks ago, he and his wife, Trudy, recognized a Memorial Day that had taken on a deeply personal meaning by placing 60 American flags around their home.
Today, as operations intensify in Afghanistan, troops at Forward Operating base Baylough in Afghanistan’s Zabul province have an enduring reminder of the ideals they are fighting for. High on their observation post overlooking a mountain value, standing proudly amid a pile of sandbags, Old Glory waves in the breeze.
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BTTT
HAPPY 235th BIRTHDAY TO THE U.S. ARMY!!!
Where’s the visits to the wounded at Walter Reed, Mowgli, Bide, Pelosi, Reid, GOP? Where’s the statement in recignition of Flag Day, Mowgli, Dept of the Interior? Dod?
WHERE??????????
American patriotism is offensive to them.
Hi Sandrat: I thought I’d post the video I made again today in honor of Flag Day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hss6kWXIiEY
BTTT
I noticed that Google, which celebrates everything from Chinese New Year to Dennis Gabor’s birthday by altering their logo, managed to skip Flag Day.
Cool!
They always skip anythig truely American.
“...“Yes, it is just a piece of cloth,” Henderson later reflected. “But what it represents are the lives of thousands of Americans who have given everything for this nation – who ask nothing in return but felt an obligation of duty to their country.”...”
Choked up beyond words...choked up, and raging...
Come November...every AMERICAN needs to shout it loud - “I WANT MY DAMN COUNTRY BACK...”
For the sake of all those boys...fathers, sons, brothers, uncles...Americans all...loved and beloved by their families, and who never came back to their homes. God, it kills me...
LFOD
RE “...American patriotism is offensive to them.....”
I’ll tell you what’s offensive, my good brother...
-What’s offensive is watching this amatuer assclown marxist reject bowing and scraping in front of every dictator, thug, and foreign scumbag he comes in contact with, with an American flag near him...
-What’s offensive is hearing this amateur assclown marxist apologizing, APOLOGIZING!!!!, for American actions around the world - in places where those AMERICAN BOYS lying under those stones laid down their lives for that flag and what it represents...
-What’s offensive is sitting here, day after day, watching the Dems and their RINO allies dismantle piece by piece all that we hold sacred...spitting on us...laughing at our anger and frustration...and plotting ways to bend and twist the law to keep them in power in perpetuity...
That’s pretty damned offensive too.
Shove, you are so spot-on; Patriotism IS offensive to them because the VERY LAST thing they want is a resurgence of American Pride, American Nationalism, and American Exceptionalism. They’ve spent the last few decades undermining and sabotaging and subverting every damned institution we have.
But they will fail. For the record: as long as ONE of US feels, remembers, and keeps that flag and what it stand for close, THEY LOSE...
As long as ONE of us picks up and holds that torch, THEY lose.
Because someone else will see it, and feel it, and ask the question “What does it mean to be an American?” And we will answer them.
And that small victory for us is a HUGE loss to them.
One citizen at a time. One Rifleman at a time.
One AMERICAN at a time.
Agreed!
Well said, I salute you, NFHale!!!
It doesn’t seem that many here celebrate or honor our flag, does it?
Huh?
Huh?
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